Apple’s custom Wi-Fi chip was delayed indefinitely, Broadcom may provide Wi-Fi 6E chips to the iPhone 15 series
It was previously reported that Apple intends to introduce its own Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chips in the iPhone product line, and will integrate 5G baseband, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth on a single chip in the future. Not only can the area of the main board be greatly reduced, but also the power consumption can be reduced to obtain a longer battery life.
With the M2 version of the iPad Pro, the new MacBook Pro, and Mac mini models supporting Wi-Fi 6E, it is only a matter of time before support for Wi-Fi 6E is added to the iPhone 15 series of smartphones. According to a well-known analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple hopes that the iPhone 15 series smartphones will support Wi-Fi 6E to achieve faster wireless speeds and lower latency, but Apple will not use self-developed Wi-Fi chips. Apple’s current priority is the development of 3nm chips, and Wi-Fi chips have been postponed indefinitely.
It is understood that the Wi-Fi solution previously developed by Apple is a pure Wi-Fi chip, not a Wi-Fi+Bluetooth combination chip. From a design point of view, developing a Wi-Fi+Bluetooth combo chip will be more challenging. Since Apple prefers to use combo chips in most of its products, it will largely be used to replace Broadcom’s solution.
As Apple changed its Wi-Fi chip development plan, Broadcom will provide Wi-Fi 6E chips for the iPhone 15 series of smartphones. Although Apple has spent a lot of effort on self-developed chips and has made preparations for the layout, it is still a huge challenge to replace various chips and integrate their functions in a short period of time. For example, 5G baseband, Apple has not made a breakthrough in research and development and is still using Qualcomm’s solution, which shows the difficulty of self-development.
